Written by Rich Csenge, Founding Director
Astonishing, enlightening, and inspiring are the experiences designed to reconnect us with our natural heritage. These descriptions are the essence of Kane County’s 9th annual Amazing Earthfest in Kanab running from Sunday, May 10 through Saturday, May 16. This celebration of land and life on the Colorado Plateau hosts over 50 free events to elevate the festivities to an experiential learning and adventure extravaganza.
The festival opens with the Invocation to Sustainability, an opportunity to attune with nature and with others in a huge, ancient, fantastically-eroded sandstone alcove. From there, visitors to the 9th annual Amazing Earthfest can explore ancient pictograph sites deep in the backcountry or engage in road and mountain bike rides through landscapes that stimulate your imagination and melt your heart. Practice yoga in the cool shade at the dawn of a sparkling red rock canyon morning or join a group hike with an experienced guide to a remote and seldom-visited slender sandstone arch. Take in some of the finest modern western landscape art at the Dixon Camp Out or gather in a poetry circle to explore the depth and significance of your relationship to place, to earth, and to night sky.
From bee keeping to medicinal plants, from pioneer history to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, visitors will come alive at Amazing Earthfest and take home indelible memories of cross-bedded sandstone and the clear blue skies of Color Country. For additional information about the 9th annual celebration of America’s wildest places, you can visit www.AmazingEarthfest.org, find them on Facebook, or contact the Kane County Office of Tourism at (435) 644-5033.
The city of Kanab makes a perfect location for the Amazing Earthfest, with an impressive system of hiking trails that emerge right out of several neighborhoods. From the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to the Ponderosa forests of the North Kaibab Plateau to the Grand Staircase and the Canyons of the Escalante, one cannot possibly explore even a fraction of southern Utah’s natural wonders in a lifetime.
In 2016, Earthfest will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a focus on the Centennial of the National Parks, so be sure to save the dates of May 15-21, 2016.
